Agents and editors (and RPLA) are likely to want a synopsis. But how can you condense a story from hundreds of pages to two or three pages? It seems impossible. Don’t worry, it is possible. Here are some ideas: Use only the main plotline. Yes, the subplots are fascinating, but they cannot be included in a synopsis. Use only the main one, two, or at most three characters by name. Anyone else that has to be mentioned can be described … Read More »

Writers need to read. Extensively. Across genres and styles, preferably, and absolutely within the genres in which they write. Each genre owns its identifiable classics. In mystery fiction, great examples abound. Let’s look at seven that should be on everyone’s reading list. 1. “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” (1841) by Edgar Allan Poe This is the only short story in the list, but it rates at least as importantly as the novels, for the simple reason that it launched … Read More »

Fiction writing is an awkward compendium of art and craft, and one with very few absolutes. A physicist can drop something off a roof and know with certainty what gravity will cause it to do under all conditions. A writer has dozens of rules, conventions, alternatives, options, and style choices. Having written, we then hear from critiquers, readers, editors, and publishers that the work is, or isn’t, cohesive, engaging, properly punctuated, correctly formatted, in the currently preferred style and point … Read More »

You read a book or see a movie, set in our own time, in a setting with which you’re quite familiar, one populated by fully realized, complex characters. After finishing it, you think, “Well, that was unbelievable.” Then you read something far removed from anything in our experiences or our history. The Lord of the Rings trilogy, for example. Filled with hobbits, orcs, flying dragons, walking and talking trees, wizards, elves, and magic. You finish it, and think, “Wow, loved … Read More »

When we write dialogue in a first draft, most of us try and make it sound informal and natural. Conversational, because it’s supposed to represent a conversation. But not too conversational, of course. If you transcribed verbatim almost any real conversation you hear in a day, you’ll read it back and realize it sounds much like incoherent blather. So you attempt a better version of the real thing. When revising dialogue, though, I find myself cutting and cutting, trying to … Read More »

The first lesson we typically learn as writers is to write what we know—good advice. After all, we want the reader to step easily into the story, sensing its truth and authenticity. But that idea can also stifle a writer. A woman I was coaching told me she would only be able to write about her divorce. “I really don’t want to re-live it,” she said, “but it’s all I feel qualified to write about.” First-hand experience may be a … Read More »